


What Baking Can Do

by Tonight_At_Noon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Conflict, Conflict Resolution, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, because it's surprisingly accurate, i can't believe that's a tag but i love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-18 17:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21280658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonight_At_Noon/pseuds/Tonight_At_Noon
Summary: Bucky is understandably confused when, after an argument, Darcy wants to bake a cake.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis
Comments: 9
Kudos: 254





	What Baking Can Do

**Author's Note:**

> What is up, everyone. Life is crazy at the moment. I have literally no time to write for fun unless it's the middle of the night, so here you go. A sleep-deprived one shot. 
> 
> Inspired by a dialogue prompt. And also by Chandler and Monica. (And title is a song from Waitress.)
> 
> Enjoy.

**.**

**What Baking Can Do**

**.**

Bucky hasn't done this in so long that after their first fight - big fight, so big his throat is raw; not from screaming, no, but from one of those lumps that gets lodged in people's windpipes when they're trying not to cry - he thinks that's it. He thinks it's over. He thinks, _I knew it wasn't going to last_ and _I knew it was going to be me who fucked it up_. And it was him - he got jealous, something Sam warned him against over and over and over. _Jealousy is a death sentence_, that's what Sam said. But it's Sam, and Bucky has this bad habit of never taking any of Sam's advice on account of not trusting anything that comes out of the bird boy's mouth.

Lesson learned. Sam, though Bucky will never admit it, was right.

He stands there, in the middle of her kitchen, panting, throat raw, watching her run her hand through her hair over and over and over. Her cheeks are red. Her eyes are red. So is her nose and her upper chest. He bets her throat is red and raw too. She isn't looking at him and that strikes Bucky as a bad sign. All of this is bad. He looks at her blue eyes, wider now that they ever have been before, and sees them glisten behind her glasses in the suddenly too harsh light hanging above them. He's made her cry.

Maybe he never stopped being a villain. All of his effort to rehabilitate himself, to rid himself of HYDRA's control, to regain some semblance of independence - it was all for naught. Darcy Lewis, standing in front of him with pink skin and tears in her wide-as-the-blood-moon eyes, is proof enough of that.

If Steve were here - but no, Steve isn't here, so he won't let himself go there.

Bucky swallows, wincing like a child as his saliva is forced to move around that lump of coal he doesn't remember swallowing. But it's there. It must be - his mouth tastes like ash. Like death. A taste so familiar to Bucky, but he can't believe it's there now. Darcy swallows too. He watches her throat move, and he watches her face contort in pain. He wonders if she tastes ash as well, but holds his tongue.

Except he doesn't. Because he can't stand the screaming silence any longer.

He opens his mouth, ready to announce that he'll leave, that he'll never bother her again, when she opens her mouth at the same time, causing his to snap shut so hard it makes his brain rattle.

He has always liked listening to her far more than he likes talking.

"Can we make a cake?" she says, and Bucky wonders briefly if he has blacked out and entered some sort of dream state in which the argument never occurred. Darcy, every inch of her creamy skin still strawberry pink, nods her head and walks to the stove, opening the cupboard just above the appliance. "I like cake," she says, facing away from him, standing on her tiptoes in order to reach the baking supplies.

She pulls out two bowls and a cake tin and a hand mixer and measuring cups and measuring spoons. Then, still without looking at him, and therefore missing the expression of pure confusion on his face, she goes towards the pantry and gathers flour, sugar, vanilla extract, and on and on and on until her arms are filled with cake ingredients. She dumps them delicately on the counter beside the stove and then moves to the fridge. Milk. Eggs. Butter.

With everything laid out, Darcy finally, finally, finally turns to face him. She stands a mere foot away from him. So, so close, but he feels like he isn't allowed to reach for her, so he stands there like a fool, still trying to work out what's happening. _Is this_, he wonders, _a twenty-first century break-up ritual_? Bake a cake to celebrate the life of a relationship in order to save both partners from going out of their minds with grief?

"Are you going to help?" she says, no longer dyed any abnormal shade of red or pink. "Or are you just gonna stand there looking like an adorably lost puppy?"

He struggles to find words. He had some before, but they've vanished. Frowning, Bucky glances between Darcy and the baking supplies behind her, hoping he'll eventually make sense of it all.

No luck. 

"Don't you like cake?" she says. She drops her jaw dramatically, sarcastically, and says, "Have you not had cake since the 1940s?"

"I-" he manages to get out before falling silent once again. Then, "Darcy, what's going on?"

She smiles, her big lips pulling upwards at the sides, making her cheeks look like apples. "We're making a cake."

"But," he says, "didn't we just . . . end this?" He looks down, then he glances through his eyelashes at Darcy.

Now she's the one who looks confused. Like the script has changed on her without warning. "What do you mean, this?"

Mouth burning, Bucky says, "Us."

"What? No. Why? What makes you say that?" she says frantically.

"The fight," he says. "The big fight. The jealousy. You said, I can't do this anymore." It hurts to repeat her words, but he thinks he manages it without sounding too much like a broken squeaky toy.

Darcy's head tilts. She smiles sadly at him and steps close, reaching up to grasp his face between her small hands, forcing him to look at her.

Her touch is so good.

He doesn't think he can live without it. Which is probably dangerous, but he's been deprived of a touch like this, one that inspires life inside of him, that awakens him, and it will be almost impossible to let this go.

"You idiot," she says, and she surprises him again by getting to her tiptoes and pressing her mouth to his. He responds automatically, his hands wrapping around her waist, his eyes closing. 

She breaks away. Her eyes still glisten, but it's not the same as moments ago. "I meant," she says, stroking the scruff on his cheeks, "that I couldn't fight with you anymore. Whenever my parents fight, they solve it by taking a break from the argument and then they do something together. Anything. And it always works. They come back afterwards, talk the argument through with clear minds, and then that's that."

Oh.

Bucky says this aloud. "Oh. So . . . we'll-"

"-Bake a cake together, then we'll get to the root of the fight, sort through it, and hopefully lay the problem to rest." She sounds so sure. So confident this will work. Dropping her hands, she wraps her arms around his waist and presses her chin into his stomach. Looking up at him, she says, "Bucky, people don't break up after just one fight. If that was what happened, everyone would be lonely and eternally single. The human race would die out. And you have worked too fucking hard to stop that from happening."

He isn't one-hundred percent sold yet. He won't be until he sees the plan in action. Until he sees results. But he'll do it. He'll bake a cake, let his mind wander from the fight, from the poisonous jealousy that fuelled it, and focus only on Darcy.

Bucky kisses her forehead. Then her nose. Then her mouth. And it feels like the kiss of life. He pulls back and says, "I like cake."


End file.
